A sitting member of the Washington D.C. City Council blamed Texas and Arizona Thursday for an influx of immigrants stressing Washington’s social services.
D.C. councilwoman Brianne Nadeau pointed the finger at the two border states, both run by Republican governors, claiming they turned Washington “into a border town.”
“The governors of Texas and Arizona have created this crisis, and the federal government has not stepped up to assist the District of Columbia. So we along with our regional partners will do what we’ve always done. We’ll rise to the occasion,” Nadeau said.
Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) launched a program in April to bus migrants to Washington, D.C., after months of calls to President Joe Biden to strengthen border security and curb a record influx of illegal migrants crossing over the U.S. southern border. The bussing program is under Abbott’s Operations Lone Star, a Texas plan to strengthen border security as much as possible.
Governor Doug Ducey (R-AZ) followed Abbott in May, announcing Arizona’s own bussing program. Together, the two states are expected to spend tens of millions of dollars bussing illegal migrants who volunteer for the trip to deep-blue cities.
“In many ways, the governors of Texas and Arizona have turned us into a border town. We don’t know how long this will take to resolve. We don’t know how long they will continue bussing,” Nadeau said. “And so the right thing to do here is to be prepared to ensure we can greet every bus, we can get people off on the right foot, we can get them to where they want to go, and that will ultimately help them in their immigration process.”
DC City Council member: “The governors of Texas and Arizona have created this crisis…[They] have turned us into a border town.”pic.twitter.com/GGKSHXF25o
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 8, 2022
Texas and Arizona have sent dozens of busses containing thousands of migrants to Washington, D.C, New York City, and Chicago. Local leaders in the Democrat-run cities have complained about the strain that the migrants are placing on local social programs. The Republican governors have said that that strain is a fraction of that placed on actual border cities in their states.
The Republican governors have picked Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago because they are known as “sanctuary cities” that openly refuse to work with federal immigration authorities to deport many illegal migrants.
“President Biden’s inaction at our southern border continues putting the lives of Texans—and Americans—at risk and is overwhelming our communities,” Abbott said in a statement last week announcing the expansion of the bussing program to Chicago. “Mayor Lightfoot loves to tout the responsibility of her city to welcome all regardless of legal status, and I look forward to seeing this responsibility in action as these migrants receive resources from a sanctuary city with the capacity to serve them.”
Biden’s administration has allowed one million migrants seeking asylum into the United States to await court hearings since the president’s term began last year. That number is in addition to hundreds of thousands of other migrants that have crossed into the U.S. illegally and were never apprehended.